Tag Archives: freezing

The Polar Vortex

As I’m writing this, most of the United States is dealing with the chilling effects of the Polar Vortex. It’s freezing. And yeah, sometimes I’ll write a blog post where I complain about the weather, about how I get too hot in the summer or too cold in the winter. But seriously, this is really cold. I wish I could take back everything I’ve ever said about the weather, because it all pales in comparison to whatever it is we’re experiencing right now.

I ride my bike to work every day. I don’t care if it’s raining or snowing or if it’s cold, I just bundle up, I’ll throw on a few waterproof layers in case it’s wet out, I’ll open my front door with my bike and I’ll say, “You call this a winter? Ha!”

And I did that today, but I couldn’t even get through that first sentence before physically recoiling from how cold it was. I was like, “You call this a …” and then the cold hit me all at once, the single digit temperature flooded the inside of my nose, and I’ve always heard people talk about having your nose hairs freeze upon contact with some really frosty air, but I’ve never actually had that happen, the sensation of ice forming up your nose, all the way up your head. I started coughing, I was like, “Holy shit, are you serious?”

Still, I don’t know, I’m stubborn, I figured I could tough out the fifteen minute bike ride. But I wasn’t even halfway there and I was regretting my decision. As I pedaled up the Queensboro Bridge, this arctic wind punishing me, trying to blow me down from the other direction, it made my face hurt, really badly. Even though I had gloves on, my fingers were losing all sensation. With one hand grabbing the handlebars, I concocted this ridiculous routine of blowing into my fist, then using that hand to deliver about a quarter of a second’s worth of warmth to somewhere on my face.

How do you live like this, Northern Canada? When I got out of work, as I walked to my bike totally dreading the ride back, I took my left hand out of my glove for just a second, just so I could do a quick unlock and start pedaling back, and I didn’t even know that this was possible, but the actual lock was frozen. It took me like five minutes just to get it through the hole, and when I did, there wasn’t any turning. It wouldn’t budge, it was completely stuck.

So I just ran for it, fuck that shit. If I had stayed outside just standing there, fiddling around with a bike lock for any longer, I wouldn’t have made it. If someone wants to tough it out overnight and try to pick the lock, be my guest, because if you’re willing to brave that type of cold just to steal what can only be thirty or forty bucks worth of bike parts, you’ve earned it, all right, you obviously need it more than I do.

And so I finally made it home. I stopped at Dunkin’ Donuts on the way back, and all I’ve been doing for the rest of the day is sitting here buried under five layers of sweatshirts, I’m drinking coffee and I’m eating donuts. That’s it. I’ve already eaten like six donuts. Because no way am I ever going outside again unless I’m protected by a layer of warming fat. All of these hours of running and exercise, and what do I have to show for it? I can’t stop shivering. I’ve already taken like three hot showers, and my feet are still cold. No way, the next time you see me, I’m going to be morbidly obese. I’ll be fat, but I’ll be warmer. And whatever, I love donuts. I could sit here and eat donuts all day for the rest of my life. Bring it on Polar Vortex. Is this as cold as it’s going to get? Ha!

You call this a winter?

I wrote this a couple of weeks ago, and of course it’s below freezing now, but whatever, at the time it was warm and wet:

It’s already December, but we haven’t had any serious winter weather yet. There have been a few cold days, but there hasn’t been any bitterness to the chill, no temperature you’d be able to describe as bone-chilling. And the past few days have been pretty rainy, so it’s like, I’ll go outside, I’m wearing what I think should be appropriate mid-December gear, a sweater, gloves, a scarf, and it’s all too much, it feels like it’s maybe pushing fifty degrees, I’m starting to sweat, and my feet are getting wet through my sneakers.

And I try not to let my mind focus on things that I really can’t control, but I wonder what the Northeast is going to be like if we keep having warm, wet winters. I remember a few years ago, we had one of these autumns that was almost tropical. I read in the newspaper this article about how these giant mushrooms were growing all over the city. Of course you had groups of starry-eyed foragers going on about how much money they’d have had to spend on shitakes if they hadn’t had the good fortune of stumbling into some rotted log in the park, but the fungus was seeping into peoples houses, weird oblong-shaped shrooms were sprouting from the cracks of people’s walls.

And this is just the start, right? Pretty soon we’ll have giant palmetto bugs year round, I mean, they have those in DC, it’s only a matter of time before those more tropical pests move up north. And what about snakes? Are we going to get snakes? Isn’t black mold a really big problem? How do you tell black mold from regular mold?

I’m sitting here freaking out about how I’m not going to be able to survive the gradual change in temperature, but right now, today, it’s actually pretty cold out. I think me sitting here and finally feeling a chill inside my house, inside my body, it’s what prompted me to think about the weather in the first place, about the lack of winter. It’s already December and on this one particularly cold day, I’m feeling like it’s the oddity here.

But I think I like winter. I don’t know. It’s always great up until my knuckles start cracking and bleeding from being too dry. It’s just like the warm weather. I enjoy it until my skin starts breaking out alongside my temple. I don’t know what my body wants, really, because as soon as the temperature starts to swing in the other direction, I’m only afforded a brief window of comfort before I start reacting negatively to the climate.

I’m probably just complaining too much. I know that I’m freaking out. I’m sitting here by the window and I can feel the winter air through the walls. For everything that I complain and worry about, I still can’t imagine how human beings dealt with the weather a hundred years ago, a thousand years ago. If I get too cold I can just hop in the shower, steam myself back to homeostasis.

But how did the pioneers deal with winter? You spend all of this time chopping down trees and building yourself a house out of wood, and then the winter comes and you’re freezing and you’re wet and you’re stuck inside that box of wood, insulation hasn’t been invented yet, and so if I can kind of feel this not-even-that-wintery weather through the walls of my modern house, I can’t imagine a log cabin or whatever providing much comfort against one of those historical winters that you just know had to have been much more severe than the seasons are today.

And I always think about George Washington, that famous painting where they’re all crossing the Delaware on Christmas. Like, Jesus, that had to have been freezing, icy water sloshing up over the sides of that boat, and what did they make winter coats out of back then? Animal pelts? There’s no way that they could have been even close to as warm as I am with my contemporary double-layered jacket. I have waterproof boots, wool socks, man, those guys must have been miserable for months at a time.

I wonder if those soldiers in that boat knew that everything that they were fighting for, it would all lead to this, our modern world, where some guy gets to sit at his computer and write on the Internet about how he’s afraid of wild mushrooms or about how it’s too warm this winter. If I were in their position, I would’ve been like, fuck this, this shit’s crazy, let’s just all move south. Yeah, we’ve got to deal with snakes, and palmetto bugs, and spiders, and malaria, but cold wet feet for three months at a time? And what happens when we finally cross that Delaware, we’ve got to go to war? Battlefield injuries with no antibiotics? Yeah, sorry General, I’ll be back in just one second, you guys get in the boat without me, I promise I’ll be right back.

A good pair of wool socks

I went hiking with a few guys from work last winter. It would have been a great day, but I couldn’t keep my toes warm, and so try as I did to just enjoy myself, the weather, the outdoors, being with my friends, I couldn’t shake the feeling that way down, at the lowest point of my physical being, there was this little area that not only refused to be warm, but it denied comfort to the rest of my body.

My torso was fine. The hat on my head kept everything on top nice and toasty. But my toes sent dramatic distress signals ringing throughout the entire system, “Help! We’re freezing! It’s so cold down here! You’ve got to do something about it! You’ve got to help us out! No time to focus on anything else but right down here! Cold! Cold! Cold!”

And finally I couldn’t take it, I had to stop for a second, I told the group, “Guys, I need a minute, my toes are freezing, I’ve got to warm them up,” and, naturally, everyone stopped, but they kind of looked around at each other, like seriously? This guy’s going to sit here and, what, start undressing because his toes are cold?

And I could tell what they were thinking, so I needed to find a way to get the attention off of me, I asked my friend Doug, “Doug, your feet aren’t freezing? I don’t know what I’m doing wrong here. My boots are waterproof, not that it’s raining, but still, it’s just that, I have two pairs of socks.”

My other friend Pete fielded the question, “Two pairs of socks? You’ve got them both on at the same time?” I nodded. “That’s your problem right there, your feet can’t breathe. We’re doing all of this walking, your feet start to overheat, they sweat, and that sweat starts to get cold. It’s a temperature drop spiraling out of control, and those waterproof boots probably aren’t helping, no ventilation, it’s like a greenhouse in there, but one that’s not at all strong enough to withstand the outside temperature.”

That was a lot that he just said, and I really badly wanted to counter with something, anything, because, first of all, I was asking Doug, and yeah, I did pick Doug kind of randomly, but Pete could have at least let Doug fumble around a little bit, a, “Yeah … I don’t know …” before butting in like a know-it-all. If Doug didn’t have an immediate answer, at least I wouldn’t have looked like I’m the only one not knowing what he was doing. But now, Pete, calling me out on the double socks.

That was only the beginning, “And what do you have there, cotton socks? Wool?” Was this a trick question? “Cotton,” I answered, and I should have said something else, I should have thrown him a curveball, like synthetic, but I didn’t, and Pete would’ve probably been able to tell anyway, this guy apparently knows everything there is to know about socks, he was shaking his head, “No, nope, nope, you gotta have wool socks. The cotton, all it does is absorb the sweat. That’s not going to happen with wool.”

Then he kind of turned around to address the group, like he was giving a lecture, a sock symposium, “I’m telling you guys, all I have is one pair of good wool socks, and I’m fine, my toes are really warm.” And everyone else just nodded in agreement, meanwhile I was sitting on some log, undoing the knots in my boots. “Easy Rob,” Pete was still on a roll here, “I know your toes must be really cold but don’t take your boots off. It’s much colder outside, even though it doesn’t feel like it. And even if you do manage to warm up your feet with your hands, it’s going to be even worse when you have to put them back inside those damp cotton athletic socks you have there.”

Couldn’t he just drop it? Did he really have to throw in the word “athletic” socks? Hiking is athletic. You need a little bit of athleticism, right, to hike? “Actually,” Pete continued, “I think I have an extra pair of wool socks in my bag,” and that was all I needed, I took off my boots, yes, it was a lot colder out in the air, I couldn’t believe it. But I started massaging my bare feet, I don’t know if it felt good, because my feet were so cold, it was like they were transferring that chill to my hands. Were my hands going to be cold now?

“Ooh, sorry buddy, I must have left them at home. Well, let’s get going, we’ve got a lot more trail to cover.” And everybody started walking ahead, I had to put the wet socks back on, they had accumulated a slight layer of frost after having been laid out beside me. It was miserable. I don’t know why Pete couldn’t have sent out an email the night before, “Hey guys! Since I know everything there is to know about socks, I figured I’d pass along some friendly advice: get a good pair of wool socks!” would that have been too much? A text message? Something?